Mental Imagery Follows Similar Cortical Reorganization as Perception: Intra-Modal and Cross-Modal Plasticity in Congenitally Blind

Borst, Aline W. de; Gelder, Béatrice de

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhy151

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 143 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In summary, our results provide evidence that prior information can drive somatotopic activity in early somatosensory areas even in the absence of tactile stimuli, and that this activity is task relevant. This findings adds to the recent literature which indicates that S1 is involved in higher order processing of tactile information [25,26,56] and that it does so by the exploitation of its somatotopic organization [56].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Prior information enhances tactile representation in primary somatosensory cortex

Kassraian

Wenderoth

Maathuis

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Successful navigation through the world requires the integration of sensory input with prior information about the environment. Although it has been shown that stimuli which match prior expectations can be detected faster and more accurately, little is known about the integration of prior information with incoming tactile stimulation in human somatosensory areas. It is also unknown if prior information can induce somatotopic activity in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in the absence of tactile stimuli. Based on a vibrotactile detection paradigm we assess how prior information impacts the behavioral performance of participants and how it concurrently modulates BOLD activity and multivariate representations of tactile stimuli in somatosensory areas within a human neuroimaging study. The supra-voxel somatotopic organization of S1 allows us to dissociate representations of tactile stimuli and the modulation thereof by prior information with the resolution permitted by fMRI. We find that vibrotactile stimuli that match the expectations of participants enhance stimulus perception, and that this behavioral enhancement is associated with higher decoding accuracies of stimulus representations in the S1 and a concurrent decrease in BOLD levels in the area. Additionally, we show that prior cues are capable of inducing somatotopic BOLD activity even prior to the onset of tactile stimulation, that tactile stimuli can be decoded from this preparatory activity and that the precision of the decoding is related to the upcoming behavioral performance of participants.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Prior information enhances tactile representation in primary somatosensory cortex

Kassraian

Wenderoth

Maathuis

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in examining neural underpinnings of cross-modal plasticity following sensory loss (Borst and Gelder, 2018; Heimler et al., 2015; Singh et al., 2018). Although the existence of such cross-modal changes is certain, the properties of these cross-modal adaptations remain unclear.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Properties of cross-modal occipital responses in early blindness: An ALE meta-analysis

Zhang

Lee

et al. 2019

NeuroImage: Clinical

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

HighlightsALE meta-analysis reveals distributed brain networks for object and spatial functions in individuals with early blindness.ALE contrast analysis reveals specific activations in the left cuneus and lingual gyrus for language function, suggesting a reverse hierarchical organization of the visual cortex for early blind individuals.The findings contribute to visual rehabilitation in blind individuals by revealing the function-dependent and sensory-independent networks during nonvisual processing.

show abstract

“…Moreover, previous studies [ 63 ] have suggested that pSTG was more involved in the sound localization, while aSTG was related to auditory pattern processing, which may be explained by anterior-posterior functional dissociation in temporal areas. The increase of pSTG might correspond to the improvement of the ability of the sound localization in EBAs, which might indicate that cortical plasticity following visual deprivation enhances intramodal organization of auditory and tactile perception [ 64 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grey Matter Hypertrophy and Atrophy in Early-Blind Adolescents: A Surface-Based Morphometric Study

Hou

Hengguo

et al. 2022

Disease Markers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective. This study is aimed at exploring the regional changes in brain cortical morphology (thickness, volume, and surface area) in the early-blind adolescents (EBAs) by using the surface-based morphometric (SBM) method. Methods. High-resolution structural T1-weighted images (T1WI) of 23 early-blind adolescents (EBAs) and 21 age- and gender-matched normal-sighted controls (NSCs) were acquired. Structural indices, including cortical thickness (CT), cortical volume (CV), and surface area (SA), were analyzed by using FreeSurfer software, and the correlations between structural indices and the blindness duration were computed by Pearson correlation analysis. Results. Compared to controls, EBAs had significantly reduced CV and SA mainly in the primary visual cortex (V1) and decreased CV in the left vision-related cortices (r-MFC). There were no regions that EBAs had a significantly larger CV or SA than NSCs. EBAs had significantly increased CT in the V1 and strongly involved the visual cortex (right lateral occipital gyrus, LOG.R) and the left superior temporal gyrus (STG.L), while it had decreased CT in the left superior parietal lobule (SPL.L) and the right lingual gyrus (LING.R). Additionally, no correlation was found between cortical morphometric measures and clinical variables in the EBA group. Conclusions. SBM is a useful method for detecting human brain structural abnormalities in blindness. The results showed that these structural abnormalities in the visual cortex and visual-related areas outside the occipital cortex in the EBAs not only may be influenced by neurodevelopment, degeneration, plasticity, and so on but also involved the interaction of these factors after the early visual deprivation.

show abstract

Mental Imagery Follows Similar Cortical Reorganization as Perception: Intra-Modal and Cross-Modal Plasticity in Congenitally Blind

Cited by 15 publications

References 143 publications

Prior information enhances tactile representation in primary somatosensory cortex

Prior information enhances tactile representation in primary somatosensory cortex

Properties of cross-modal occipital responses in early blindness: An ALE meta-analysis

Grey Matter Hypertrophy and Atrophy in Early-Blind Adolescents: A Surface-Based Morphometric Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About